Huawei launches Mate 9 and Mate 9 Porsche Design smartphones

Huawei has announced its new flagship phone, the Mate 9, along with a limited edition designed in collaboration with Porsche Design. The Porsche Design variant of Huawei's new flagship unfortunately won't be making its way to the UK, but it's an exciting smartphone nonetheless.

Strangely, the two phones have completely different designs. The standard Mate 9 has a flat, 5.9-inch full HD display and runs on the Kirin 960 processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage which is expandable up to 256GB by microSD. It's powered by a 4000mAh battery and sports USB-C for fast charging. Huawei says you can get a full day's charge in just 20 minutes.

You'll find a fingerprint scanner on the back where you finger naturally lies, as well as a dual camera system made in collaboration with Leica.

The dual system comprises a 12-megapixel colour RGB sensor that can also record 4K video with optical image stabilisation, and 20MP monochrome sensor to help with depth. Huawei has also implemented a 4-in-1 hybrid autofocus which combines laser focus, phase detection focus, depth focus and contrast focus. The company says the camera system is able to produce "stunning photography".

The Mate 9 will also come running Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei's own EMUI 5.0 on top.

The Huawei Mate 9 will be available for €699 in black, space gray, moonlight silver, champagne gold, mocha brown and ceramic white when it launches. It will initially be available in select European countries, the UK not being one of them.

Limited edition Porsche Design

The Porsche Design version meanwhile has a smaller screen than the standard Mate 9 at 5.5-inches, not only is it AMOLED, but it gets a bump in resolution to 2560 x 1440 Quad HD. It also comes rocking a curved glass screen and all metal body. The fingerprint scanner has been moved from the back to being embedded in the home button on the front, and in its place you'll find a Porsche Design logo. The limited edition model will only be available in a graphite finish.

Some other specs are the same as the standard Mate 9, including processor, and the dual camera system, but it gets 6GB RAM and 256GB storage with no option to expand via microSD.

The Mate 9 Porsche Design will be available from Porsche Design stores in Europe from December for €1395 and will make its way to other Porsche Design stores worldwide, except in the US from January 2017.